Deborah Weinstein: Undoing Bush's Budget Priorities (TomPaine)

[marmar]

Undoing Bush's Budget Priorities
Deborah Weinstein
March 06, 2007


Deborah Weinstein is the executive director of the Coalition On Human Needs.

A budget concretely expresses priorities through its choices. In the budget submitted by President Bush in early February, reducing the taxes of the wealthiest Americans is such a high priority that it is paid for in part by billions of dollars in cuts to domestic programs, with the rest covered by borrowed money. The tax breaks enacted since 2001 will be worth $73 billion to millionaires in 2012, providing them with an average of $162,000 each in that year. In that same year, the President would cut domestic programs such as education, housing, nutrition, public health, Head Start, job training, environmental protection and much more by $34 billion. And that’s not all—the budget shrinks the federal role in providing medical care to the poor by $60 billion over 10 years. It would reverse the progress made in insuring children by freezing funds for the State Children’s Health Insurance Program (SCHIP), and eliminate food stamps for 300,000 people in low-income working families.

These priorities are utterly and generously misguided. They follow upon six years of beneficence to the wealthy and erosion of services for most everyone else. Today, 150,000 fewer children receive child care subsidies than did in 2000; 150,000 fewer households get help to keep rent affordable than did in 2004. Food stamps have not been adjusted for inflation, and so are worth only $1 per person per meal.

Congress should not miss the opportunity to turn these priorities around in the budget resolution it will hammer out by April 15. The House and Senate Budget Committees are at work right now, with the House Budget Committee’s version expected out the week of March 12. While the budget resolution does not provide detailed program-by-program allocations, it can either allow or restrict progress towards meeting the nation’s needs.

In particular, the budget resolution sets a total amount for all annually appropriated programs, both domestic and military/international. Out of about $1 trillion in annual appropriations, the president’s budget allocates $392 billion to domestic programs. The Coalition on Human Needs, working with labor, faith-based groups, service providers, policy experts and other advocates in the Emergency Campaign for America’s Priorities (ECAP), has been urging Congress to raise the total for domestic appropriations to $450 billion. Where does that figure come from? It starts with the funding levels in 2005 (before significant cuts made in 2006), is adjusted for inflation and population growth and is then raised a few percentage points to address unmet needs. It is not a recklessly large figure. In fact, the difference between $450 billion and the president’s proposal is nearly made up by the 2008 cost of the Bush tax cuts for millionaires alone—$55 billion. .....(more)

The complete piece is at: http://www.tompaine.com/articles/2007/03/06/undoing_bushs_budget_priorities.php

[illinoisprogressive]

1. Typical Conservative Idea: cut the new deal and breaks for the wealthy